Getting Body Slammed by a Lowland Gorilla (or Something Close Enough)
by Shirokuri
Summary: In which Richard has a bad day at work - that is to say, the story of a perfectly normal day in the life of one Detective Richard Paul of the Delta Section. Also featuring an MX who, like all his brethren, takes things perhaps a bit too literally.
1. Chapter 1

There's this TV commercial he saw once as a little kid. He doesn't quite remember what it'd been trying to advertise, but the one line that's stayed forever in his head is: "When mistakes are made, you get body-slammed by a lowland gorilla."

Regrettably, that sentence almost completely accurately describes his life at the moment.

As a teenager, he used to watch all these action-packed anime in which the protagonists would sporadically go through training-from-hell mini-arcs. Back in the present, his ribs feel like they've been at the receiving end of every single one of those myriad of training-from-hell mini-arcs. Ditto for his arm, which most definitely is broken (it feels squishy; is it supposed to feel squishy?). He probably has a concussion from being thrown around like a sack of... well, a sack of whatever stuff people tend to throw around. "Not kittens" is all his mildly concussed brain can come up with presently.

The good news is his right arm's the squishy one, so his dominant hand is still free to squeeze off as many shots as he can between the nigh constant barrage of gunfire spewing out the opened door (God only knows how many bots are still in the building). He's also alive, which is a definite plus.

The bad news is pretty much everything else.

His MX, crouched a few steps below him on the staircase, has taken two shots - one to the arm and one to the lower torso. The latter seems to have luckily missed any important processing and motor control centers. A few stray lines of red run and spiral across his cheek, sparks arcing across circuits every so often below the layer of synthetic skin. The MX twitches slightly each time that happens; Richard would laugh, but now's really not the time to be an asshole (a distinction he knows how to make, thank you very much, Kennex and Stahl).

"Detective Paul, you have sustained several injuries that may be compounded to life-threatening status by further action. It is advised you seek immediate medical attention." The MX takes him by surprise, and he starts.

"Really? Now? In the middle of a crisis like this?" he demands, turning to look at the MX even while keeping his gun perfectly steady.

"Yes. In your current state, there is a seventy-eight percent chance you will be a greater hindrance than help to the operation."

"You can take your statistics and shove them up your - " he breaks off, remembering the MX design schematics that had been reviewed in the mandatory (for everyone but Detective Special Snowflake Kennex) seminar shortly before the MXs were integrated into the workforce.

"... nostrils," he finishes weakly.

The MX cocks his head slightly as his processing lights map out the intricate circuits in his head.

"Statistics are an abstract concept that have no form with which one could - "

"Shut up," Richard says, ducking lower on the stairs as a stray bullet ricochets off the handrail. He pops his head up to floor level as the shooting ceases and empties an entire magazine in the direction of the bots' hiding spot. "And don't think I've forgotten that you were the one who broke my arm."

"I tackled you to remove you from the predicted trajectory of the HCL's bullet, which would have been a fatal hit directly in the right ventricle of your heart. I believe the bullet in question is the one currently lodged in the palmaris longus fiber bundle of my left arm."

"Are you seriously trying to guilt-trip me here?"

"The previous statements were not issued with the intent of eliciting any type of emotional response. I was merely stating the facts, sir."

Richard presses his lips together, knowing from the moment the MX uttered "sir" that the argument is a lost cause. Reloading his handgun, he rises slowly from his defensive position on the stairs and takes a few cautious steps toward the door, his MX following closely behind. "Lead me in. And don't tell me to fall back. Ever again."

"Your order has been duly noted."

Out of all the lines and combinations of words programmed into the MXs, that has to be the one he despises most. What is it even supposed to mean? His order's been recorded in the MX database? The MX will obey the order? The MX is listening but will disregard the order as stupid? He shoves the thoughts into a corner of his mind as his MX runs one last scan or another and steps into the open doorway, firing off four shots in rapid succession, four satisfying thuds following. He has to admit the MXs do have their uses.

What Richard isn't prepared for, however, is for said MX to go flying backward, tumbling off the stairs to the floor below, as the last illegally reprogrammed HCL bot charges forward. It grabs onto his shoulders and yanks him toward the spot where his MX fell. Gritting his teeth against the pain as his back slams into handrail, he shoves his gun into the android's midsection and pulls the trigger three times. It whirs as it slumps down at his feet. He takes a moment to collect himself before pushing it away.

"Detective Paul, that appears to have been the last android," a somewhat muffled voice comes from below. Richard leans carefully over the railing to peer at his MX. He's picking himself off the floor, where he'd fallen facedown. The electrical arcs and twitching have worsened, and the arm that had been shot now hangs uselessly by his side.

"Can you still function?" Richard asks. The MX lurches.

"I have lost motor control in my left arm, and some functions have been impaired by the impact. Currently operating at approximately seventy-eight percent of optimal functionality."

"Good. We'll check out the last two floors and the roof before heading back down."

"That is not advised, sir. Preliminary bio-scans show new contusions in your lumbar region as well as possible spinal fractures or vertebral displacement. It is recommended you seek - "

"What did I say about telling me to fall back?"

The MX tilts his head to the side. "And don't tell me to fall back. Ever again," he says in Richard's voice. So that's what he'd meant by "duly noted." Richard cringes.

"Don't do that ever again either."

"I am programmed to protect you at all costs. I do not advise you to advance any further. I will continue alone."

"Look," Richard says indignantly, jabbing a finger in the MX's direction as the latter walks up the stairs, "just five years ago I did all this by myself. I'm not letting a synthetic do my job for me."

"Very well then. I will lead you in."

The worst part, Richard thinks, is that he lets the MX do it. He - like Kennex, he admits reluctantly - had resisted switching to the android partner system until it'd become required, and now he's almost pathetically dependent on the glorified mass of silicon. If time travel were possible, he'd never be able to face his self of five years ago.

"This floor is clear, Detective."

"Right. Next one."

They march up the stairs like two battered Santa Clauses of law enforcement bearing their gifts of justice and lead slugs. Every few steps the MX almost trips, slowing down their progress considerably. Richard mentally revises his previous conclusion of the MXs' utility.

"This floor is clear too, Detective."

"To the roof."

When they get there, the door is locked. Richard slides to the ground, head (and pretty much all of his upper body) throbbing, as the MX sets to destroying the lock. He's never been body-slammed by a lowland gorilla before, but he'd bet twenty dollars it feels something like this.

"Clear."

He jolts back awake and lets out a breath of relief, shakily holstering his gun as his MX helps him back onto his feet.

"Did you radio the others?"

"Yes." The MX studies him with mechanical eyes. "Detective Paul, you just lost consciousness for ten seconds, indicating you have suffered a grade three concussion. Immediate medical attention is imperative. The paramedical team has been notified and is heading to this location as we speak. Do you require assistance down the stairs?"

"No," Richard snaps, jerking his arm free from the MX's grasp. He starts making his way back down, the MX following so closely behind that if anything's going to make him fall, it would be the MX stepping on his heels. The forensics team is already on the fourth floor when they reach it, holotape set up around the forcibly deactivated HCLs. Officer Martinez straightens up to greet him as they approach.

"Are you alright, Detective Paul?"

"Yeah, if there was a way to be alright after being tackled by two bots in one day."

Martinez winces, eyebrows crinkling in sympathy. "This one, huh?" he asks, gesturing at the HCL Richard had shot. "Sorry, I'll get out of your way. Medical team just arrived. They're sending one of the EMTs up to take a look at you."

"Thanks." Richard pats his arm wearily as they pass, stepping carefully over the pieces of the bot littered on the ground. The EMT meets them halfway down the stairs between the third and second floors and immediately begins the barrage of questions leading into yet another annoying medical evaluation and - inevitably - yet another annoying hospital stay.

The MX climbs into the ambulance after they load Richard's stretcher in and, despite the paramedics' protests, adamantly refuses to budge from his perch in the back. Eventually they give up and drive off toward the hospital, ignoring the silent bot staring watchfully at them.

Richard supposes it's some measure of comfort, even if the MX was one of the lowland gorillas (or something close enough) that had body-slammed him for his mistakes.

* * *

A/N: That lowland gorilla commercial is an actual thing, and I 100% recommend that you go check it out along with all the other "don't _" Directv commercials. I have a hard time referring to anything with a human form as "it" even if a robot should technically be an "it," so the MX is "he" here. Which probably just made this 500% more confusing. If you were wondering if the HCL bot is a stupid reference to hydrochloric acid, you would be absolutely correct because we're currently in the acid-base/equilibrium chapter in AP Chem and I've done so many ICE tables I'm crying (thank god for the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation).


	2. Chapter 2

It's raining when he wakes up, as if some cosmic being had scooped up an armful of idiomatic cats and dogs and decided to dump them right over the city. Figures. Even the weather has some kind of death grudge against him.

They'd insisted he stay overnight for observations, and now they're insisting he stay longer for a variety of reasons he doesn't particularly care about and doesn't pay much attention to. At least he has an entire room to himself, which is nice seeing as he couldn't even manage to live with someone he'd genuinely cared about, much less some stranger also in just as sorry of a condition as he's currently in.

His MX stands guard at the foot of his bed, a point of calmness in the whirlwind of the various physicians and nurses who bustle around him for half an hour before moving on to the next room. They leave him propped up on the pillows, a brace around his waist and a cast on his arm (a simple fracture, which is at least eight times better than a compound fracture and, as an added bonus, won't require surgery).

"I did warn you about continuing further, sir."

Richard jumps.

"Can you not do that?" The MX looks strange stripped of his standard-issue weaponry, like a main character from a cartoon who's animated in a different outfit for a special occasion in the week's episode (but, obviously, the staff would much rather he feel a vague unsettlement than have the MX bring a gun into a hospital). There's a piece of machinery lying by the MX's feet. Richard follows a snaking cord up to the base of the MX's neck, where it's plugged into one of the hidden sockets. "Generator," his battered brain finally comes up with. Most likely the MX hasn't been charging at the station, since the battle wounds are still there, though someone has comically taped a square of gauze over the bullet hole on his left arm.

He leans back and listens to the rain for a grand total of five minutes before it begins to irritate him. Really, when he thinks of it, the sound of rain is just nature's glorified finger tapping. Who even cares?

"So, what's going on at the office today?" he asks as he continues staring up at the ceiling. There's a faint yellow-brown stain on one of the tiles. He pictures a beaker of dangerous volatile chemicals sitting on a table, toxic fumes slowly rising in twisting ribbons and sizzling as they make contact with... whatever the ceiling's made of (obviously that's how science works).

"Detectives Stahl and Martinez have been assigned to investigations regarding the origin of the hacked HCL bots. They are currently following a lead in the Defense District. Further information has not yet been added to the database. Detective Kennex - "

"What made you think I wanna hear about that asshole?" Richard snorts.

"Detective Kennex," the MX continues, imperturbable, "is currently on his way to visit you."

He groans and covers his eyes with the hand he can move.

"What did I do to deserve this?"

"DRN-0167 and Dr. Rudy Lom are accompanying him."

"Really? Even better," he says sarcastically, shifting into a more upright position in preparation for the coming storm.

Right on cue, as if they had been waiting for the worst moment to burst in and had sensed that things couldn't reach any point lower than this, the three of them burst into the room - Dorian laden down with a large toolbox, Kennex laughing (probably at something he said himself), Rudy trailing behind like a kid at a new school. Richard swears the room instantly shrinks in half, and suddenly there are way too many people crowded in the general vicinity.

"Are you alright, Detective Paul?" Rudy asks, hovering over him while glancing nervously at the silent MX in the corner. "Has he been giving you any trouble?"

"The MX?" Richard asks, surprised. "No."

"Right," he says, nodding as if he were trying to reassure himself. Richard doesn't get what the problem's supposed to be. The MXs are programmed to be bland, generic, and severely restricted in terms of action capabilities. What does Rudy expect the MX to do? Stare the both of them to death?

"Anyway, I uh, I need to run some repairs and diagnostics on him. He didn't return to the station yesterday. Detective Martinez brought in the portable generator this morning while you were still asleep. I'm... used to working by myself," Rudy continues, giving Richard a smile that looks more like an allergic reaction to peanuts, "so if you hear some odd noises, just remember that I know one hundred percent what I'm doing."

"Why didn't you just haul it into your lab once its charge ran out?" Richard asks, keeping a wary eye on Dorian and Kennex. The former loiters in the center of the room, having occupied the swivel chair and turning around in slow, lazy circles. The latter wanders over to the window, staring outside in what Richard guesses is supposed to be a cool pose. He just looks like a massive tool.

"Well, that's hardly respectful, is it?" Rudy shoots back in return, stooping down to open the toolbox Dorian had set on the ground. He rummages around and pulls out five different tools, all of which Richard is thankful will never go anywhere near his body. "You wouldn't wait for someone to succumb to exhaustion before forcibly detaining them somewhere they didn't want to be, would you?"

"I'm a cop. That's my job."

Rudy just lets out a long-suffering sigh, as if Richard were the one in the wrong, and turns his full attention to the comically-placed gauze on the MX's arm. Meanwhile, Kennex finishes his angsty brooding and saunters over to the bed, pulling something out of his pocket as he goes.

"Finally woke up from your beauty sleep, huh?" he asks, throwing the object over to Richard. He barely manages to avoid catching it with his face. What a douchebag. "You sure needed it."

"For someone who slept a year and a half, you should go demand a refund because that beauty sleep of yours was definitely false advertisement," Richard replies, picking the thing up to get a closer look. It's still warm from Kennex's body heat. He drops it in mild disgust.

"Hey, at least I can reach all the cabinets in my house," Kennex says with a self-satisfied smirk, plunking himself down into the chair to the right of the bed. Richard wishes there had been a well-placed tack on the seat, but he doesn't remember the last time he actually saw a tack in the flesh (oh, how technology marches on).

"A Rubik's cube?" Richard asks, pointedly ignoring the quip about his height - the one exchange he'll never win. He turns it over in his hand, feeling the weight of the plastic and twisting a few rows experimentally. He studies the arrangements of the colors on the six faces, which Kennex had been kind enough to scramble beforehand.

"Figured you'd need something to keep you occupied while you're stuck in that bed," Kennex says, "since you're an old man and you'll be stuck here a couple more days."

"Wait a minute. I'm starting to remember something," Richard says, looking to his right at Kennex. "What was it? Oh, that's right. I think I remember someone had to stay in the hospital for an entire week after the XRN incident."

"Oh, come on. Are you seriously comparing an XRN to an HCL?"

"The HCL are heavy-duty construction labor androids designed to be several times stronger than the average service bot. Therefore, it would not be incorrect to compare the two on the basis of physical strength." Both of them jump at the sudden input from the forgotten MX. A screech and crackle follow as Rudy starts too, the tool in his hand scraping over a circuit board in the MX's arm.

"Sorry!" he shouts quickly, turning and giving the three other occupants of the room a guilty look. He swallows noticeably. "That uh... shouldn't be anything permanent."

"Anyway," Kennex says, returning to the conversation as everyone else resumes their pre-interruption activities, "why don't you see if you can beat my time? If you can solve it at all."

"'If I can solve it at all'?" Richard repeats, a patronizing grin creeping on his face as he begins fluidly spinning the faces, the cube flipping rapidly in his hands.

"Ten minutes," Kennex continues with less bravado, eyes fixed on the puzzle and very obviously losing some confidence at the sight.

Dorian turns a semi-circle to face them, smiling like a kindergarten teacher breaking up a fight between two small children. "John, it took you the entire evening shift to solve, and you asked for my help seven times. You made over 200 unnecessary turns. Using your initial strategies, it would've taken you at least twenty-three years. I'm sure Paulie can do better." Kennex looks back at him with a scowl.

"Look who strikes again. Benedict Andriod."

"You've got bigger things to worry about than 'Benedict Andriod' over there," Richard breaks in, tossing the completed Rubik's Cube back. He basks in the glow of Kennex's utterly stupefied expression. "What was that you said? Ten minutes? The entire evening shift? And you - " he turns his attention to Dorian, who's grinning from ear to ear, " - don't ever call me 'Paulie' again."


End file.
